


In Restless Dreams I Walk Alone

by hufflepirate



Category: Captain America (Comics), Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Cuddling, Gen, Nightmares, Post-Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Recovery, Songfic, Surveillance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-03
Updated: 2017-04-23
Packaged: 2018-10-14 06:28:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,142
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10530810
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hufflepirate/pseuds/hufflepirate
Summary: A series of oneshots based on Simon and Garfunkel songs.  Title comes from "Sound of Silence"Most of these are movie-verse, but a few are based on the comics.  All of them feature Bucky and Simon and Garfunkel lyrics.  I started writing them some time between CA:tWS and CA:CW, so at this point they're all AU, unless I get around to doing more after I get the current ones cleaned up and posted.  The original idea was to do one for every song on the greatest hits album but actually I wrote only a handful and then abandoned it for other projects and never posted them.Inside, find: The Sound of Silence (Post-CA:tWS, Bucky recovering, G)Bleecker Street (Post-CA:tWS, Bucky recovering, Sam tailing Bucky tailing Steve, G)Wednesday Morning, 3 AM (Comics, Captain America #611, BuckyNat, T for violence)





	1. The Sound of Silence

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bucky's on his own on purpose, but time has been healing some of his wounds, and he's starting to feel like he might be ready to move on.

_Hello darkness, my old friend_

_I've come to talk with you again_

_Because a vision softly creeping_

_Left its seeds while I was sleeping_

_And the vision that was planted_

_In my brain still remains_

_Within the sound of silence_

It was a relief to retreat into the darkness of the abandoned warehouse by the docks. Bucky had thought maybe, now that it was cold enough to make him shiver, that he might be able to sleep at one of the shelters in town. He'd thought maybe he was ready to be around other people, or maybe he could make himself be if he just appreciated the warmth hard enough.

It wasn't true. He had too many nightmares, and too many of them shifted, drifted into thoughts he'd had while he was awake, that he couldn't help having while he was awake, thoughts like how, exactly, he could most effectively kill everyone in the room if he had to get away.

The usual nightmares, sometimes real memories and sometimes killing Steve, were bad enough. But nightmares about the people really around him were harder, because they didn't shake away when he woke up. They lingered, like they could have been real, even though they weren't.

The darkness was cold but comforting, because he was alone in it. Sometimes rats scuttled and squeaked, but right now, it was just silent. He couldn't shake the dream, but he didn't have to. He was alone. Darkness and loneliness were his safest friends, right now, and it turned out, he appreciated them more than warmth. He thought maybe he shouldn't be that way, but that was one bad thought too many, and he couldn't hold onto it.

It was nice not having to talk to anyone. It was nice not having to worry about anyone. He slept better when it was quiet.

_In restless dreams, I walked alone_

_Narrow streets of cobblestone_

_'Neath the halo of a street lamp_

_I turned my collar to the cold and damp_

_When my eyes were stabbed by the flash_

_Of a neon light that split the night_

_And touched the sound of silence_

It was colder than it had been a few weeks ago. Snow was coming down, and he couldn't sleep in his warehouse. It was too cold, and it gave him different flashbacks, now, flashbacks of being frozen over and over. He had to keep moving, keep his body temperature up, keep going.

He was starting to regret having wandered onto one of the old cobblestone streets when he was this tired, the uneven stones beneath him making him feel off-balance. But he supposed it kept him alert. It was hard to be alert, when you couldn't sleep. But it was hard to sleep when you couldn't stop moving. He wished there were more street lamps, so he could see better. But then he was glad there weren't many, because he wasn't sure he wanted to be seen.

As a gust of wind blew up, sending snow swirling toward him, he turned up the collar of the worn-thin coat he'd picked up at Goodwill for a couple of hours' worth of washing dishes at a diner where they couldn't hire him _really_ , but the usual guy hadn't shown up. It didn't help much, but it was better than nothing. It kept his neck dry, anyway. It didn't do much for the cold. He was always cold. He wished he were brave enough to retreat back to one of the shelters again. But now they were fuller, most of them overflowing, on these snowy nights, and he was more afraid of what he might do if he woke from a nightmare and he didn't know where he was.

He turned the corner to find smooth pavement, which was a relief, and a bright neon sign flashing in his eyes, which wasn't. He ducked his head down, pulling his collar higher again, as if it would help. (It didn't.) But not looking made the neon hurt his eyes, adjusted to the dimness of the other street, less than looking did. So that was alright.

He could see the flashing across the sidewalk as he walked under the neon, and he spared a moment's glance, just to see what it was. An old movie theater. The kind that still played old movies, because no one would have bothered to go if they played new ones. The kind you went to for an _experience_. He'd heard a young couple chattering about it, when he was hiding away in a corner of the Burger King, feeling too exposed in the too-bright light as he ate too little because it was what he could afford with the few dollars he'd found in the street.

The movie on the marquee was _Captain America_ , and he couldn't remember when they'd ever made more than newsreels, which meant it was probably from before Steve had found him on the German side of the line. Unless it wasn't. He still didn't remember much. It was a comfort to think he probably wasn't in the movie.

For a moment, he thought maybe he'd go inside, see if it made him remember anything. But then he remembered that he didn't have any money, and he'd have to talk to someone about it, have to say what he wanted and ask if they had work for him, and watching Steve faked up wasn't worth sweeping up soda-sticky popcorn, and it wasn't worth talking to people.

He kept walking. He wondered if a movie theater would be a good place to sleep. It would be warm. He remembered that movies had explosions you could hear even outside in the lobby. He thought he'd better stay away.

_And in the naked light I saw_

_Ten thousand people, maybe more_

_People talking without speaking_

_People hearing without listening_

_People writing songs that voices_

_Never shared and no one dared_

_Disturb the sound of silence_

Daylight was harder than the night. It was easier to ignore the cold when the days cleared up, the sun shining naked on the world and almost, almost warm. But he was never alone. But he was always alone. There was a constant bustle, people moving back and forth along the sidewalks, and he'd learned to sweep along with them, to stay out from under foot, to pretend he knew where he was going. He knew the patterns, now, knew how to read a sidewalk and know how he could move in it without being noticed.

Sometimes, Bucky wished someone would notice him.

People moved in their floods, half of them chattering into cell phones, grunting and humming at the people in their ears while their eyes darted around, present on the sidewalk or in crossing the street, ignoring the voices he couldn't hear, or they walked in a daze, listening so hard they were barely here.

Buskers were out during the day, and some of them made decent money, and sometimes he thought he could join them, but the problem was that he couldn't sing, and he didn't have an instrument, and he couldn't play one. There was a man who painted himself gold and pretended to be a statue. He thought maybe he could do that. He was half metal already. But that was it, wasn't it? It worked because people liked that the statue was really a person. He thought maybe if he were a statue, he'd just be a statue. He wasn't sure he knew how to be a person.

Sometimes he wanted to ask what it was like, pretending to be a statue all day. But the statue man never answered anyone's questions. It was better not to ask. Not to interrupt. He walked all day, just like he walked all night, and the longer he walked, the more he wanted to ask questions and the more he wanted to interrupt, and the more he couldn't.

_"Fools," said I, "You do not know_

_Silence like a cancer grows_

_Hear my words that I might teach you_

_Take my arms that I might reach you"_

_But my words, like silent raindrops fell_

_And echoed in the wells of silence_

The preacher on the street corner was the fire-and-brimstone type, and he shouted. Bucky flinched away. It wasn't enough. The man pointed a finger and told him he was going to hell. He wasn't sure how he knew. But there the man was, shouting, and he was right, because Bucky _was_ going to hell.

Then the preacher turned on a girl walking by, maybe a teenager, maybe a little older, a round-faced innocent, and he called her a whore and she blushed and kept walking, and Bucky knew she wasn't, and he didn't know how he knew, but he did. The preacher kept shouting. The girl blushed harder and walked faster. As she passed Bucky, she sniffled. He didn't know if she was cold or crying. It was too much. He snapped at the preacher.

"Hey! Leave her out of it!" His voice felt rusty. He didn't know why. He talked plenty, sometimes, when he asked for work and bought chicken nuggets and begged for coffee. "You call me whatever, you want, 'cause sure I'm going to hell, but you leave her out of it. Can't go making girls cry. Can't let 'em think that's how it is." It occurred to him that Steve would have started telling the guy off earlier, and that he would probably have punched the guy by now, even though the preacher was bigger than him, and then it occurred to him that the preacher _wasn't_ bigger than Steve, and then it occurred to him that he wasn't sure when he'd started remembering Steve little, again, or thinking of him that way at all.

The preacher talked back. Bucky was still thinking about how he'd have had to wade into the fight to pull the man off Steve, and he punched him. And then he did it again, and he wasn't sure why, and maybe it was just because he was used to punching once never being enough, never being what he was ordered to do. He was losing himself, and it didn't feel good, the way telling him off had. Not speaking would have rankled, and festered, and felt wrong. Speaking had been good. This wasn't good.

The girl was screaming, now, grabbing at his arms to get him to stop and that was maybe enough like getting orders, or maybe he'd just had enough of watching his nightmares come to life, enough of hurting where he didn't have to hurt, but the rest of the street was ignoring them, like they weren't even there, and when he stopped hitting the man, no one seemed to notice.

"I don't think you're going to hell," he told the girl.

"Thanks," she said, "But you'd better go. It's not worth it. I can't believe you hit him!"

He could believe he'd hit him. He wished he hadn't hit him. But saying something had been worth it. Had felt good. Had felt like what Steve would have done, and when had he started measuring things like that, anyway? And when had he _stopped_ measuring things like that?

He told her it was worth it as he walked away, but she wasn't listening. No one was listening. Why weren't they _listening_? He'd realized he was ready to speak again. When Steve would have. When Steve _would_. Steve was here somewhere. He almost wondered if he was ready to go find him. He was speaking now. Speaking was better. Speaking like Steve was best. It was the best he could hope for. It might be the best he could _ever_ hope for, when punching a man ran away into a nightmare so fast, still.

_And the people bowed and prayed_

_To the neon god they made_

_And the sign flashed out its warning_

_In the words that it was forming_

_And the sign said, "The words of the prophets are written_

_On the subway walls and tenement halls_

_And whispered in the sounds of silence"_

Steve was everywhere, but it was never really him. His old movie was back in the old theater again, but that had never really been Steve, because when Bucky found his way in, he could see the soundstages, and he couldn't see his best friend. There were t-shirts with Steve's shield on them, but the folks who sold them didn't know Steve and they didn't know where to find him.

It was funny, almost, that he was ready to find his best friend, and he couldn't, when for those first few weeks he'd been so afraid Steve would find _him_. But then, back then, he hadn't remembered the Stevie-ness of Steve. He hadn't remembered Steve standing up when he was tiny, or speaking when he was weak. He hadn't remembered Steve sticking by the helpless, even when they didn't deserve it. He'd only remembered Steve standing there, refusing to fight against him, and he'd remembered not knowing he could trust it.

Now, he could trust it. But everyone else seemed to be trusting something else. The strength of his arms, the new body, the shield itself. He needed to find Steve. The real one. He kept looking, trying to keep him in mind. The real Steve. Out there somewhere. Maybe getting in a fight in a back alley. Maybe waiting for Bucky to bail him out. Maybe the same as he'd always been. Or maybe something else, these days, and that almost made him scared enough to stop looking.

He wandered down into the subway again, never sure what train to take, never sure he could afford to take one if he didn't know where he was going, and there it was, in the dark, the SHIELD symbol, halfway spray painted in dripping black paint. He didn't know SHIELD, but he knew he'd been fighting them when he found Steve. He knew that much, and that was enough. He waited in the shadows, hoping the painter would come back to finish it.

The teenager showed up just after midnight in a blue hoodie with Steve's shield on the front, and Bucky wasn't surprised when he started laying his stencil out for the other half of the SHIELD eagle.

"Do you know where to find him?" Bucky whispered.

The boy jumped and spun around to see him. Bucky held up his good hand to stop the boy from running away.

"Steve," Bucky clarified, "I mean Captain America. Do you know where to find him?"

"Whoa, man! Who are you?" The boy was whispering, glancing over his shoulder like he thought someone else might be there, too.

"I need to find Steve," Bucky answered. It would have to be enough.

"Dude, you must _really_ be a fanboy if you're using his first name. That's a little crazy, bro. But I don't know. I know some dude saw him in Brooklyn, but I don't know where."

Brooklyn. Bucky almost smiled, because he remembered that. He remembered Brooklyn, and he remembered following a little guy from Brooklyn even after he got big. Of course that was where Steve was. Steve would be waiting. Where he'd always belonged. Where Bucky might belong too, if he could just remember. He was starting to remember. He smiled.

The stop near where they used to live in Brooklyn was different, its apartment complexes not quite the tenemants he remembered, but he was sure he was about to find Steve there anyway.   The whispered voice in the silence of the subway tunnel had said so. But so did something else, some other whispered voice, deep inside him, that he hadn't heard in a long time. It felt good. It felt like going home.


	2. Bleeker Street

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> MCU. Post-CA:tWS. AU, but in my defense, written before CACW even had trailers.
> 
> Bucky's trailing Steve, but doesn't want Steve to know he's there. Steve knows Bucky's there, but doesn't want Bucky to know he knows. Sam's trailing Bucky because Steve's a manipulative bastard once you get past the whole Captain America shtick, but also because Steve needs this.

_Fog's rollin' in off the East River bank_

_Like a shroud it covers Bleeker Street_

_Fills the alleys where men sleep_

_Hides the shepherd from the sheep_

Foggy days were the longest. They forced him to stick closer to Bucky in order to keep track of the man, and that made him nervous, the kind of nervous that left him exhausted by noon, with half a day left to watch. The former assassin was slippery, even when he wasn't trying to be, and sometimes Sam suspected he was trying to be. Steve insisted that his cover couldn't have been blown or Bucky would have confronted one of them, and the part of Sam that had vivid and visceral memories of having his wings torn off believed him.

The other part of him had been watching Bucky for long enough to suspect that even if the man knew he was there, he might not attack him. He might leave him be.  He seemed to be doing his own thing now, sort of.  It was always a surprise.

The fog was thick today, but Sam knew where Steve was going to be all afternoon, and if he lost Bucky, he'd be able to find him again while Steve was sitting in American History class at CUNY. Hovering outside the school always made him feel dirty, somehow, even though he knew neither he nor Bucky was as sinister as they looked and the school wasn't full of actual children, just a bunch of 18-year-olds who seemed like children sometimes. He wasn't looking forward to it, but at least it wasn't the most uncomfortable part of this whole stalking thing.

The most uncomfortable thing was that Bucky had been sleeping in alleys full of people for weeks, and Sam just had to watch, and bad weather just made it all worse. He hated this. His father had been a minister, and he'd grown up with the doors of his house unlocked, even in Harlem, even knowing it could get him killed, even knowing it almost had, a few times. He'd grown up watching his father bring people into the church and into their home, watching him feed and clothe them as best he could. He'd joined the military to help people.  He'd gone to school to be able to help people back home.  He'd pulled veterans off the streets in his time at the VA.  He'd worked his whole life helping others, and now here he was just watching and not doing a damned thing.

"If I'm supposed to be some kind of guardian angel," he'd told Steve, the last time the weather was bad like this, "I'm not very good at it. I don't like not _doing_ anything."

Steve had told him not to worry about it. He'd told him he wasn't an angel, he was a shepherd. He'd told him Bucky was a lost lamb, and once they'd rescued him, they could lead the rest of the flock away, too.

Sam's father was a minister. Sam had grown up listening to Bible stories and shepherd metaphors. Sam had tried to let go of that. He'd tried to be practical and reasonable. He'd tried not to let his heart get in the way of his head. But he was a sucker for a shepherd metaphor and Steve had a way of looking at him as he said it that made if feel like he really _did_ believe Sam was some kind of secret Jesus.

He pulled his phone out of his pocket. He'd ask Tasha to bring coffee to the rest of the alley's holdouts after Bucky left. The assassin was usually an early riser, and a few of the alley's other men wouldn't be.  And then he'd tell Steve off again for not letting him do more, just out of principle.

_Voices leaking from a sad cafe_

_Smiling faces try to understand_

_I saw a shadow touch a shadow's hand_

_On Bleecker Street_

Bucky kept his metal hand tucked squarely in his pocket, even with his glove on. He knew Steve had moved back to New York for him. He knew Steve was hoping he was here, hanging around old haunts. He knew Steve knew he was starting to remember. He didn't want Steve to know he was _more_ than starting. Being here, whether Steve knew it or not, was good for him.

Steve had moved back to Brooklyn, and Bucky hadn't. He didn't like being too close. It made him feel like he was going to get caught. But even having crossed the East River, he could feel the past rising up around him, seeping out of the ground to encompass him. He hadn't always been the poor one. Steve had been the poor one. But even in the bad times, Steve hadn't been poor like _this_ , sleeping in the streets. He'd gotten by. They both had, and mostly because they'd had each other and Bucky had been able to help. Bucky didn't remember how they'd gotten by, exactly, and he didn't remember why things had been bad, but he remembered that they'd gotten by in the end.

He was getting by, now. He stopped for a moment outside of the door to his usual coffee shop, tugging his glove higher up his wrist to check his camouflage. It sounded busy, which wasn't always the case. There were 3 Starbuckses on this street, and the little hole-in-the-wall struggled to survive against them. Some days, it was sad and desolate. Today, there was a hum that meant maybe, just maybe, they'd have dishes for him to wash in exchange for his breakfast.

The shop's owner was a dark-skinned young man in tight-legged jeans, which he always kept cuffed so that they were too short. Bucky wondered if maybe he wasn't doing so well, either. He'd looked scruffy since the day Bucky met him, but he looked less purposefully scruffy now. He smiled weakly when Bucky walked in. "Hey, man. Lemon scones are about to come out of the oven."

Bucky hated lemon. He nodded anyway. He wasn't in the position to turn down food.

"Dishes might take a while today. I've got a new business partner, and - we've been busy."

Bucky didn't ask for details. The coffee man helped him. The coffee man tried to understand him, but he didn't. But Bucky didn't understand the coffee man, either, and he was ok with that. He didn't need to understand the coffee man. The coffee man was good, and it was enough.

In the kitchen, Bucky washed dishes. He left his gloves on, but neither of the bakers who worked there in the mornings commented on it anymore. He washed dishes here once a week, because that was how often the coffee man would let him without actual employment paperwork Bucky knew he couldn't fill out, and they were used to him by now.

Today, they chattered about a 'deal with the devil' and 'shadowy business partners,' but Bucky didn't think they'd ever been _really_ in the shadows in their whole lives.

The more he came back to himself, the more he thought that might be a good thing.

_A poet reads his crooked rhyme_

_Holy, holy is his sacrament_

_Thirty dollars pays your rent_

_On Bleecker Street_

In spite of the cold weather, Bucky's usual hipster coffee shop had its usual hipster guitarist sitting out front at one of the small outside tables. Sam had only spoken to her once, and by accident. She was a student, but only part-time, and she took all her classes at night, so she could work a full time job. Busking before work in the morning helped with the fact that she still couldn't quite afford all of the classes she was taking.

Sam didn't mind sitting outside the coffee shop and listening to her. She wrote her own songs, and at her best she was deeply profound. He wasn't sure when she had time to study or sleep, but he knew all she needed from the passers-by was $30 a month to fill out the rest of her rent money, and he hoped that when she got it, she could spend her morning hours doing something more than scraping by. Once she'd gotten it, her whole body relaxed around the guitar, and the profundity came thicker.

This morning, she was at her best. After listening to her for an hour, her voice was a little weak and her four chords were a little monotonous. This morning, it didn't seem to matter. This morning, it might even have made the listening better. Something about her was real, today, real and raw and open. When she started singing about sheep and shepherds in the mix, he almost laughed. He found himself drifting forward in his hiding place to listen, hoping she wouldn't see him skulking around again. He wore his wings to tail Bucky, because he needed the protection of them, but he'd always known that flying off would give him away. He'd have to handle it without making an escape if something went wrong.

When Bucky came out of the coffee shop, Sam thought he might not have moved back out of the man's line of sight in time. But then Bucky turned to study the girl instead of gazing into the shadows and he felt alright again. The former assassin tucked his hand into his pocket - the metal one as usual - and listened to the girl for a moment.

Before he walked off, he said, "I'm sorry. I don't have any money."

The girl smiled at him, "That's alright. I don't either. Well, I do, but I pay the rent tomorrow, and then I won't."

"Good luck with your rent," Bucky answered, and then Sam was scurrying to follow him as he left abruptly. Sam wasn't sure he'd ever heard Bucky speak to anyone before. He thought maybe he should drop some more money in the guitar girl's cup, in case it helped her have more good days. They seemed to be good for Bucky, too.

_I head a church bell softly chime_

_In a melody sustainin'_

_It's a long road to Caanan_

_On Bleecker Street_

_Bleecker Street_

Suspecting that Steve's friend was following him and _knowing_ that Steve's friend was following him were two very different things.

A month ago, Bucky would have gotten angry at Steve for meddling, and the winged man for helping.

A month ago, he hadn't remembered quite so much.

Now, he could verify that Steve's friend was shadowing him, and all he needed was a moment to reorient himself and he could get used to the new idea. Now, he had listened to enough people talking that he could make conversation with a stranger for long enough to get his bearings. Now, he could set off for Steve's campus with the full awareness that he had a tail, and he could be ok with that.

That meant it might be time to get out of all this.

But it didn't mean it was time to go back to Steve. He still wasn't ready. Even as he sat outside Steve's classroom, watching his friend through the window (a window Bucky could now be sure Steve was sitting in on purpose), he knew he wasn't ready. The school's bells rang the hour, but bells ringing the hour never felt like they belonged to a school. They felt like church bells. He kept telling himself they weren't. He kept telling himself he couldn't go back to Steve yet.

He knew how long it was before Steve got out of class, and so he knew how long he had to think about it, the steady ringing of the bells keeping him grounded. He felt almost like they were holding him together, because he was calm, and he'd spoken to someone today, and he was ok with the fact that Steve's friend was following him.

Those things _had_  to mean he was ready. Didn't they?

The thought plagued him for the rest of the day, but it wasn't until there were more bells in the evening, faint bells from a church far enough away that you could only hear it when the wind blew the right direction, that he did something about it.

* * *

 

If Sam Wilson half jumped out of his skin when he woke up from a dead sleep to find Bucky sitting on his dresser and staring at him, it was probably only fair.

"What are you doing here?" the man asked, clutching at this blankets in a moment of panicked instinct, and then letting go.

"I think I'm ready," Bucky answered.

"To talk to Steve?" Sam asked.

Bucky shook his head, "To start walking toward him. I'm not ready for the rest yet."

Sam nodded, "That's ok. Sometimes it takes a long time to make it home. And sometimes we make it home and it still doesn't feel like home." His voice was tired and distant, like he was saying things he'd said before, "But the thing is, that just because you've left someplace doesn't mean you've made it somewhere else yet. Sometimes you make it home like it's nothing, and sometimes you start to go toward home and it feels like spending 40 years in the desert. You just can't give up"

Bucky nodded. "Long road to Caanan, and all that. But it's ok. I'm not giving up. I'm just-" He paused, thinking for a moment. "Waiting."

"On Steve?" Sam asked.

Bucky shook his head, "On me being ready to go. Steve already sent me a pillar of fire, didn't he, Wingman?"

Sam laughed. "You and Steve are gonna give me a messiah complex, if you keep going on like that. You must've had one heck of a preacher as a kid."

Bucky liked being in the same sentence as Steve. It was a step. And maybe one day soon, he would be ready.  "We did," he answered, trying to joke back.  Sam nodded, and didn't ask any questions about it, and Bucky was relieved not to be pushed.

He climbed off the dresser when invited, but he didn't like being in a strange place with someone around he couldn't see, so he slept on Sam's floor. Fog rolled in outside, and Sam said, as they were drifting off, that if Bucky was willing to stay, he thought he'd go help the homeless people who slept in Bucky's alley tomorrow morning. Bucky felt ready for that, too.

"And the girl with the guitar," he said, "And the coffee man."

Sam knew what he meant. He chuckled softly. "Fine. All of Bleecker Street, then."

Bucky nodded. He hadn't quite registered what the name of his street sounded like, but he knew what it was to make progress. He'd been doing it. And this, accepting this, was doing more of it. "Make it not-so-bleak street," he commented back.

Sam laughed again in the dark, "Man, Steve'll be surprised once you decide to tell him what we've been up to."

Bucky nodded again. This time, thinking Steve might turn up didn't seem so bad.


	3. Wednesday Morning, 3 AM

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> BuckyNat. Non-MCU compliant. Set in the middle of Captain America #611. Bucky contemplates leaving Nat behind.
> 
> (For non-comic folk, this is while Bucky is acting as Captain America. In 608, Bucky's identities are revealed to the media - not just his identity as Bucky Barnes, but also his identities as Captain America and the Winter Soldier. A few issues later, he'll have to turn himself in.)

_My life seems unreal,_

_My crime an illusion,_

_A scene badly written_

_In which I must play._

_Yet I know as I gaze_

_At my young love beside me,_

_The morning is just a few hours away._

James had hoped that tonight - _this_ night, out of all of them - would be free of nightmares. Instead, the nightmares had shifted, reshaped themselves around what he was going to do tomorrow, around turning himself in. He held his prosthetic arm up in the moonlight and sighed in relief when it turned out to be the new one Fury had given him a few months ago. It looked like skin, visible in the moonlight, but not glinting the way the old one had. When he laid it over his eyes, it felt like skin. It was warm. Soft. Almost natural. Almost right.   He breathed deeply, in through his nose and then slowly back out again, trying to stay calm and not to wake Natasha.

He could hear her breathing beside him, softly, evenly, and much more quietly than he was. If she was dreaming, hers were peaceful.

In his dream, his arm had been plain metal again, and he'd been aware even without looking that the star on his shoulder had been red. And of _course_ it had, because his hair had been long, Winter Soldier long, and when the reporter asked him if he "really thought a _traitor_ should be wearing the flag," he hadn't stood there looking dumbfounded this time. He'd reached out his metal hand and clamped it around the man's throat, squeezing until blood spurted out between his fingers, running in the cracks in the arm and dripping toward his elbow while he stared at it. His brain had rebelled against the idea but his emotions had surged toward it, pleasure washing over him at the sheer, vicious violence of the moment.

The blood had turned into Natasha's hair, wrapped around his metal fist, and that was when it had gotten worse. He'd been hauling her around by it, and she'd begged him to stop, to let go, and he'd known this was wrong, known he'd never hurt her like that. He'd woken up with a jolt, his heart stinging with the shock of it.

He left his hand over his eyes, just breathing. A nightmare. It was only a nightmare. And this time, it hadn't even been a real memory. He had to let go of it. He had to calm down. Natasha didn't know he was turning himself in tomorrow morning. She didn't know this was the last night. She couldn't know he was anxious about anything more than the usual. He couldn't wake her up.

He could hurt her, though. He _would_ hurt her, tomorrow, when he gave himself up to the American people. When he left her and Steve and the Avengers and everything else to turn himself in to the police. When he waited on a trial, and hoped against all hope, against his best judgment, against what Steve had told him just a few hours ago about politics and spectacle, and even against his own gut instinct, that he would somehow still go free again.

He couldn't wake Natasha up, but that didn't mean he couldn't turn to look at her. He took his hand away from his face, and rearranged himself slowly, rolling onto his side and trying not to jostle her.

Her back was to him, and her hair was splayed out behind her, the edges of it floating across his pillow, reflecting the faint moonlight that streamed in through the window. He reached out to touch it with his other hand, the one that had always been human. It was cool and soft, just its featheriest edges, and it didn't feel real. It wasn't solid, wasn't _her_. It was just mist.

He took another deep breath, slow and deep and as silent as he could make it.

Then he scooted closer to her just a little, just enough to start to feel her body heat. It wasn't enough either. The dream still beat in his heart and if this was his last night - _their_ last night, he needed to hold her.

She slept through it when he wrapped his arm carefully around her, and that told him - more than anything else - how much she trusted him, even in her sleep. She was soft and warm, her body easing back into his own like she knew it was him. After all her training, she probably did, even while she was asleep.

He shouldn't do this. He shouldn't leave her. He loved his life, and he loved her, and he _shouldn't leave her_. His breathing was growing difficult again, and this time it wasn't about fear or nightmares, it was about the fact that he was trapped, and the only reason not to do the right thing was the way he felt about it, and that would never be reason enough. Not anymore. Not now that he'd taken up the shield and let it remake him.

He watched her breathe, watched her chest gently rise and fall, feeling the way her breaths extended down into her stomach, under his arm. She breathed deeply, with the full capacity of her lungs. She breathed like an infant, like she was safe and sound and worryless, and he wondered if she would sleep like this, so deeply, once he was gone. He hoped she would. He wanted to remember her like this. He hoped she could forgive him after what he was about to do. Because, come dawn, this would be over. He was going to leave her here, just like this, at first light, and he was going to try to remember her just like this. He was going to try to pretend he hadn't messed it all up.

Maybe he would get lucky, and it would be true.


End file.
